Category Archives: garden writing

This whimsical shelter was located on a ridge in Philadelphia overlooking the Schuylkill River. It was “one of the thatch-roof rustic pavilions installed at the [Fairmount Water Works] between 1864-1866 as a decorative improvement,” according to the website Philadelphia Architects and Buildings.

In the lower left corner of the picture, you can just see one of the water work’s Classical Revival buildings at the river’s edge below. They housed and disguised the pumping equipment of the city’s water supply system from 1815 until 1911.

I love the birdhouses near the top of the pavilion’s roof.

The little buildings seem to have been replaced during the 20th century by white gazebos more closely matching the style of the other water works buildings, which now house a restaurant and interpretive center.

This is the message of a charming chair at the Ecole du Breuil in Paris. The photo is by Alain Delavie* from his blog Paris côté jardin (Paris garden side).

However, in his post on May 26, Delavie noted that the temperature was “hardly conducive to lazing in the shade of a tree … more to a jacket and mulled wine.” Indeed, Paris had record cold weather for the end of May. Today, the temperature will be around 14°C or 57°F — pretty chilly.

Paris côté jardin is a wonderful resource for gardeners preparing to visit (or even luckier, live in) Paris or the Ile-de-France. Delavie is the editor of Rustica Hebdo magazine and editorial advisor to www.rustica.fr. Equally impressive, he is a member of the European Network of Master Composters.

(The blog is in French, but there is a Google Translate button.)

The Breuil School is run by the city of Paris and is located on 23 hectares in the Bois de Vincennes. It was founded in 1867 by Baron Haussmann and Alphonse Du Breuil to provide the Paris and Seine region with properly trained gardeners. Today, its mission is to train gardeners, technicians, and managers for the city of Paris “on the subject of plants in the urban space.”

The school enrolls 300 students at a time: 200 in the classroom and 100 in apprenticeships. Its grounds and facilities include an arboretum, heritage orchard, greenhouse, many plant collections, and library.

Today’s quote

Tant que mai n’est au 28, l’hiver n’est pas cuit.

Until May 28, winter is not cooked.

— French saying, via Paris côté jardin

And another

As gardeners, surely we have done our duty once we have registered our disapproval at the general arrangement of the universe, with complaints of special sharpness directed toward the clumsiness — indeed, sloth — with which wind and rains are scheduled. It is all that can be expected of us. The rest is the full responsibility of the heavens and need not, therefore, concern us. It does seem to me odd, nevertheless, that this “Nature,” which is supposed to be so wonderful, so rarely lets anything come to full perfection. It is all designed on the frog in the well principle, two hops forward and one backward until a certain level is reached, then the whole thing collapses. That is all anybody needs to know about nature.

The Archives hold over 60,000 photos and records documenting 6,300 historic and contemporary American gardens. At its core are almost 3,000 hand-colored glass lantern and 35mm slides donated by the Garden Club of America.

Smithsonian Gardens maintains 11 gardens around the Smithsonian Institution’s grounds and also has a good blog here.

Chelsea Miscellany

All The Telegraph’s Chelsea coverage is here; The Guardian’s is here; The Independent’s is here.

BBC coverage is here. You may need this to view it. (View episodes soon; some expire in four days.)

The New York Times reports on how gnomes will be allowed in the show this year (only), here. In the Herald (Dublin), “Diarmuid Gavin has branded the Chelsea Flower Show ‘dull’ and described Prince Harry’s garden at the centenary exhibition as ‘bad,'” here.

Studio ‘g’ has photos of the Best in Show winner — the Australian garden — here, and they promise more pictures to come. Also, check out The Galloping Gardener’s report, here (thanks to GD by CM) — Gardenista’s,here — and The Enduring Gardener’s, here. Anne Wareham of thinkinGardens comments on two of this year’s entries, here.

Sources for seeds for cow parsley — plant of the moment at this year’s show, according to Gardenista — here.

Instagram photos tagged #chelseaflowershow are here. GAP Photos has 103 photos of Chelsea, here. More photos, as well as plant lists, are posted on Shoot,here.

Thumbnails of both are featured on pages one and two of Google Image Search for those topics.

Search term bringing the most views to this blog: “Chateau Gaillard.” I have never posted about Chateau Gaillard.

Strangest search term bringing (2) views to this blog: “why would someone enclos [sic] a front porch and make their side entrance the main address.” Please, I would never do that.

Best blogging lesson learned: In a country where the power goes off several times a day, click on “save draft” constantly.

Most popular enclos*ure photo on Pinterest:

from “A visit to GOFTC.” “A pole is placed in the middle of the [compost] pile so it can slide in and out. If it is pulled out warm and damp, the pile is in good shape.”

Most annoying WordPress feature: a spellcheck that changes ‘enclos*ure’ to ‘enclose*ure.’ Also, quote marks are frequently facing the wrong direction — see just above.

My own favorite image this year: I really couldn’t pick one, but I did love the pouring teapot in the garden of the Sowathe Tea Factory last January (below).

Thank you all for visiting enclos*ure in 2012.

*according to my WordPress.com Annual Report and “My Stats.”

Today’s quote

People often ask us, in an amazed way, “how do you possibly garden together?”. . . [O]ne person’s strengths fill in for the other’s weaknesses. The human eye contains two kinds of receptors: rods respond to light or darkness; cones are sensitive to color and detail. Men’s eyes have more rods, a thousand times more sensitive to light than cones, so men wait for low light, often seeing better in the dark. With a plethora of cones, women may stumble in the dark but are better able to respond to the subtle blush of a rose. It doesn’t stop there. Men and women process the information that comes in through their eyes differently. Women store visual information on both sides of their brains, men on one side only: this give men better depth perception, but at the price of color recall, which is easier for women. Ten percent of men are functionally color blind, and almost none have the selective capacity of a woman’s eye, well trained.

Right now I’m really taken with the Game of Thrones books (I know, I’m behind the trend; I’m in Rwanda.) I’m thinking of making the jump to an e-reader this month and then loading on the second book (aka Season Two) to watch in February. I also want Hillary Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies soon (I had to re-read Wolf Hall last month first — it’s so good).

What are your plans for winter reading?

Today’s (rather long) quote

With a transatlantic perspective, Horace Walpole struck a prophetic note in 1775 just before the outbreak of war. He imagined a declaration of gardening independance when he predicted that “some American will . . . revive the true taste in gardening. . . . I love to skip into futurity and imagine what will be done on the giant scale of a new hemisphere.” Walpole did not base his statement on any knowledge of American gardens. He simply lamented what he perceived to be the incipient stage of a reaction against the idealizing landscape gardening of Capability Brown in favor of an affected variety and intricacy that he thought characterized the picturesque school. The rising interest in horticulture and uses of gardens as places to display flowers and flowering shrubs struck him, even in a manmade landscape, as out of tune with the sublimity of open landscape. For him, the best seemed over by 1770. Perhaps there was hope for a revival in America, where huge expanse of unspoiled and panoramic landscape offered endless opportunities to invoke “ideal beauty,” with its natural harmony and continuity. . . . The American landscape garden, however, never realized that vision.

In America, as in England, the direction in the new [19th] century was toward the picturesque display of plants in gardens, a development promoted by the proliferation of nurseries and seed houses all over the East and by plant-hunting expeditions to all parts of the world.”

About me

I have a certificate in Landscape Design from George Washington University. I’ve also lived and made gardens in five countries in Africa (most recently in Kigali, Rwanda) and in the Washington, D.C., area.

I currently live in Stuttgart, Germany.

Contact me: cgoodson51@gmail.com

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